The Academic Minute

Why do some bumblebee larvae become queens while others do not?

Etya Amsalem, associate professor of entomology at Penn State University, looks for the answer.

Faculty Bio:

Etya Amsalem is an Associate Professor of Entomology at Penn State University. She earned her M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Zoology from Tel Aviv University, Israel, and completed postdoctoral training at Penn State University and the University of Haifa, focusing on chemical communication, insect genomics, and bee health. Her research examines the evolution and mechanisms of social behavior in insects, integrating approaches from chemical ecology, evolutionary biology, functional genomics, behavior, and physiology.

Transcript:

When we think about a bee colony, we often imagine a queen ruling her kingdom. But in some social insects, the colony functions less like a monarchy and more like a self-organizing society.

A defining feature of social insects is the division of labor between females. Queens and workers often share the same DNA, yet develop into individuals with very different roles. Queens are large, long-lived, and reproductive, whereas workers are smaller and typically nonreproductive.

But what determines which larvae become queens?

My colleagues and I investigated this question in bumblebees, seasonal social insects that are also vital pollinators. A single queen starts a colony in the spring and produces hundreds of workers that rear her offspring. Later in the season, workers begin laying their own eggs, while the colony starts producing new queens.

To understand how the same DNA produces both workers and queens, we manipulated juvenile hormone levels in workers and larvae and tracked the movement the labeled hormone. Juvenile hormone regulates reproduction and development across insects, but it was unclear who controls caste development and how these signals reach larvae.

Workers treated with juvenile hormone produced larger offspring and more queens. In contrast, treating larvae directly did not produce queens and often caused workers to eliminate them. We also found that larvae respond only during a brief developmental window. Most importantly, we discovered that workers transfer juvenile hormone to larvae during feeding, providing direct evidence that workers regulate queen development through hormone transfer.

These findings reveal a bottom-up rather than top-down system. As workers mature, their hormone levels rise, increasing the amount transferred to larvae. Collectively, these interactions determine which larvae become the next generation of queens, showing that the colony’s future is shaped not by the queen alone, but by the workers themselves.

Read More:

[ScienceDirect] - The making of a queen: Hormonal regulation of female caste in the social bee Bombus impatiens

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Being an influencer has become a popular career goal for young people.

Matt Simoneau, professor of career and technical education at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, explores why.

Faculty Bio:

Dr. Matt Simoneau is a professor of Career and Technical Education at the University of Wisconsin–Stout. His research explores how young people develop career aspirations, with a particular focus on the influence of social media, career education, and vocational pathways. He collaborates with researchers in the United States and Norway to study how students imagine their futures and how schools can better support career development. His work has been featured in The Conversation and has been presented at national and international education conferences.

Transcript:

When a second grader in Norway drew a YouTube logo instead of writing down a career, my colleagues and I asked why. The child simply replied, “Because YouTubers are famous and make lots of money.”We expected that answer to be unique. It wasn’t.When we asked second graders in Wisconsin the same question, many gave remarkably similar responses. They also wanted to become YouTubers or social media influencers.Since 2021, my colleagues and I have been studying how children and teenagers in the United States and Norway imagine their futures.What we found surprised us.More than 60 percent of the middle and high school students we surveyed said social media influenced their career aspirations. For many young people, TikTok, YouTube and Instagram have become powerful sources of career information, second only to family members, teachers and friends.Social media isn’t always a negative influence. Some students told us they discovered careers like marine biology, filmmaking or engineering through videos they watched online.The challenge is that schools often rely on career assessments and planning programs developed before social media transformed how young people learn about work. Many students described these activities as repetitive or disconnected from the careers they were actually considering.One student even called a required career survey a “waste of time” because it recommended becoming a truck driver after she had already been accepted into nursing school.Young people are clearly thinking about their futures. But increasingly, those futures are being shaped not only in classrooms and counseling offices, but also through the content they scroll past every day.Understanding where students get their career ideas may be just as important as helping them decide where those ideas should lead.

Read More:

[The Conversation] - From Norway to Wisconsin, children want to be social media influencers when they grow up

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How has our society’s view of hunger and response to it changed over time?

Claire Strom, professor of history at Rollins College, explores the history.

Faculty Bio:

An agricultural historian, Claire Strom is a history professor and the Rapetti-Trunzo Chair of History at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. Her areas of specialization include: Agricultural history; the American South; and the progressive era. She is co-author of the 2024 book Empty Plates: A History of Hunger Relief covering a worldwide review of hunger relief over the centuries until the 1960s, then delving deeper into U.S. domestic hunger relief and the national food bank movement through to present day. Strom earned her PhD from Iowa State University. For more than a decade, she served as editor of the Journal of Agricultural History. Her Professional Organizations include: Southern Association of Women’s Historians Southern Historical Association Agricultural History Society. Among her Awards and Honors: The Gladys Baker Lifetime Achievement Award, Agricultural History Society, 2021.

Transcript:

A deep dive into the history of hunger reveals that the lack of adequate food is ubiquitous in human history. No society has existed without hungry people. Methods of addressing hunger are equally old and have varied greatly over time. In England, during the reign of Elizabeth I, relief became a governmental responsibility with little sympathy for the able-bodied poor. This notion migrated from England to Colonial America, where some communities paid families to take in paupers, even auctioning them off to the lowest bidder. The Enlightenment and social Darwinism of the 18th and 19th centuries heightened beliefs that poverty was a moral failing, leading to the incarceration of many paupers in workhouses. The intense poverty and hunger of the Great Depression muted condemnation of the poor and increased governmental social programs. The years after World War II continued this expansion of governments’ involvement in their citizens’ welfare, with the development of the idea of universal human rights, in which food figured significantly. In the US, this culminated in reforms of the Great Society, including the Food Stamp Act of 1964.In 1967 businessman John Van Hengel opened the first food bank, relying on surplus food from fields and packing sheds. Food banks spread throughout North America and the world in the subsequent decades. And, by the 1980s, with the retreat of government from social justice, food banks and their corporate donors became increasingly important in combating hunger. Second Harvest, renamed Feeding America, has surveyed hunger in the United States since 1993, offering longitudinal data. The agency’s studies show that the problem of hunger is worsening, not improving. Such findings leave many food bank employees conflicted, stating that they recognize the need to feed the hungry but hope that government and corporate interests would devote more attention and resources to ending poverty itself.

Read More:

[Rollins] - Strom Publishes Book on History of Hunger Relief

[Rollins] - Strom Receives Lifetime Achievement Award from the Agricultural History Society

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The fourth wave of the opioid crisis may be receding, but progress is still uneven overall.

Joseph Friedman, resident physician at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, examines this.

Faculty Bio:

Joseph Friedman, MD, PhD, MPH joined UC San Diego School of Medicine as a Psychiatry Research Medical Resident from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he completed his MD and PhD in Social Medicine. Before that, he undertook a master’s in public health and a three-year data science fellowship at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. His research combines epidemiological and anthropological approaches to studying substance use, drug overdose, mental illness and other socially-bound causes of mortality and morbidity. He has a particular interest in the US-Mexico border region, and has spent several years living and working in Tijuana, Mexico.

Transcript:

After years of record-breaking increases, drug overdose deaths in the United States fell sharply between 2023 and 2024. In our new study, we found that the national overdose death rate declined by almost a quarter, driven largely by decreases in deaths involving illicit fentanyl.These findings represent a significant turning point in the overdose crisis. Researchers often describe the epidemic as unfolding in four waves: prescription opioids, heroin, fentanyl and, most recently, fentanyl combined with stimulants such as methamphetamine and cocaine. For the first time, we observed declines in deaths involving both fentanyl and stimulants, suggesting that the fourth wave of the crisis may also be beginning to recede.This is a historic shift. After years of watching overdose deaths climb higher and higher, it is encouraging to see evidence that the trend is moving in the opposite direction. At the same time, the findings offer important reasons for caution. Deaths involving methamphetamine and cocaine without fentanyl continued to increase and accounted for a growing share of overdose fatalities. If these trends continue, stimulants may soon surpass opioids as the defining addiction-related public health challenge in the United States. We also found that xylazine, a veterinary sedative increasingly found in the illicit drug supply, was involved in a growing proportion of overdose deaths.The study also highlights persistent inequities. Although Black Americans experienced the largest decline in overdose death rates between 2023 and 2024, their rates remained substantially higher than the national average. American Indian and Alaska Native populations continued to experience the highest overdose death rates of any group we examined.The recent decline in overdose deaths is encouraging, but it does not mean the crisis is over. Sustaining this progress will require continued investment in addiction treatment, harm reduction and overdose prevention, while ensuring that the communities most affected by the epidemic are not left behind.

Read More:

[Wiley] - Charting the decline of the fourth wave: US overdose deaths by race, ethnicity and substance involvement

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On Houston Methodist Research Institute Week: Are you a pickleballer?

Andrew Lee, professor of neuro-ophthalmology, looks at the rise of the sport and the injuries that come with it.

Faculty Bio:

Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology, Neurology, and Neurosurgery at Houston Methodist. Dr. Lee received his first faculty appointment in 1994 as an Instructor in the Department of Ophthalmology, Neurology, and Neurosurgery at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Dr. Lee joined Houston Methodist Hospital and Research Institute in 2009 and is currently Chair of the Blanton Eye Institute at Houston Methodist Hospital and Professor of Ophthalmology, Neurology, and Neurosurgery at the Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Lee is interested in optic nerve disorders and, in particular, tumors of the optic nerve. He is involved in ophthalmic graduate medical education and in the teaching and assessing of the ACGME competencies.He serves on the editorial boards of 12 journals including the American Journal of Ophthalmology, Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology, and Eye and is the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Academic Ophthalmology. Dr. Lee is a recipient of the Honor Award, Secretariat Award, and Senior Achievement Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology. Resident training is a particular interest of Dr. Lee. He has published several papers on teaching and competency testing methods in ophthalmology residency programs.

Transcript:

Pickleball is one of the fastest-growing sports in America, attracting millions of players with its easy-to-learn rules and social appeal. But as participation rises, so does an important health concern that many players may not consider: eye injuries. This study looked at national patterns of eye injury related to not just pickleball but also dodgeball, and kickball in the U.S. with emphasis on incidence, demographics, injury mechanisms, and diagnoses. Using data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, we analyzed eye injury cases reported between 2014 and 2023. We found thousands of sports-related eye injuries during that period, including more than 3,800 cases linked to dodgeball, more than 2,500 linked to pickleball, and more than 1,500 linked to kickball. One of the notable findings was the difference in who was getting injured. Pickleball-related eye injuries primarily occurred in older adults, while dodgeball and kickball injuries were most common among younger teenagers. Across all three sports, the leading cause of injury was direct impact from the ball. The most common diagnosis was a corneal abrasion, or a scratch on the surface of the eye. However, pickleball injuries were more likely to involve falls and orbital fractures, which are breaks in the bones surrounding the eye. We observed a significant increase in pickleball-related eye trauma over the past decade, reflecting the sport’s growing popularity nationwide. The good news is that many of these injuries may be preventable. Protective eyewear can provide an additional layer of safety and help reduce the risk of serious vision-threatening trauma. As more Americans embrace recreational sports to stay active and healthy, awareness of eye safety is becoming increasingly important. Our findings highlight a simple message: protecting your vision should be part of the game plan.

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On Houston Methodist Week: A simple blood draw alongside imaging could benefit cancer patients in the future.

Maen Abdelrahim, chief of gastrointestinal medical oncology, explains why.

Faculty Bio:

Dr. Abdelrahim earned his PharmD, followed by a PhD in Pharmacology and Toxicology, and subsequently an MD from Texas A&M University. He completed his residency at Baylor College of Medicine and a fellowship in Medical Oncology at Duke University.As Chief of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology at Houston Methodist Neal Cancer Center, Medical Director of the Cockrell Center for Advanced Therapeutics (CCAT) Phase I Program, and Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, Dr. Abdelrahim is leading efforts to shape the strategic direction of GI and transplant oncology. He integrates cutting-edge clinical trials with patient-centered care to drive transformative outcomes. Under his leadership, CCAT has established a robust pipeline for early-phase clinical trials, including novel CAR T cell therapies for gastrointestinal cancers such as cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) and colorectal cancer (CRC). He oversees the design, scientific review, and execution of these trials while fostering multidisciplinary collaboration and innovation across oncology and research teams.

Transcript:

For patients who’ve had a liver transplant to treat liver cancer, one of the biggest fears is recurrence, the cancer returning. Our team set out to see whether a blood test could help us catch that earlier, and with fewer invasive procedures. The test is called circulating tumor DNA, ctDNA. It picks up tiny fragments of cancer DNA that tumors shed into the bloodstream. We made this test personalized: we first analyze each patient’s own tumor tissue to identify its unique genetic fingerprint, then we design a blood test that watches for that exact fingerprint after transplant. In our study, we followed 38 liver transplant recipients with hepatocellular carcinoma or cholangiocarcinoma, two of the most common forms of liver cancer. We tested these patients with ctDNA alongside our usual surveillance tools: imaging scans and standard tumor-marker blood tests. Over the course of the study, we confirmed cancer recurrence by imaging in six patients. Three of them also had a positive ctDNA result. And importantly, when the ctDNA test came back positive, it was right, we saw no false positives, meaning a positive result reliably confirmed real recurrence. I led this study alongside my colleagues, here in our GI oncology program. We believe catching recurrence sooner can change outcomes for transplant patients, who often have limited treatment options once cancer returns. This is the first study to test this approach prospectively, and we’re continuing to study it on a larger scale before it becomes standard practice. But it points to a future where a simple blood draw could work alongside imaging to give our patients, and their doctors, more confidence, and maybe more time.

Read More:

[Houston Methodist] - Using ctDNA to Detect Recurrence & Guide Management of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

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On Houston Methodist Week: Is epilepsy more prevalent in certain regions of the country?

Weichuan Dong, assistant research professor of cardiology, examines whether it is.

Faculty Bio:

Dr. Weichuan Dong is a scientist in spatial epidemiology, population health, and machine learning, with a focus on how environmental and social factors shape chronic disease risk and outcomes. Dr. Dong’s work integrates large-scale clinical data, advanced AI/ML methods, and geospatial analysis to generate insights that support better prevention, diagnosis, and care delivery.Dr. Dong has led and contributed to multidisciplinary projects across cardiology, cancer, neurology, and public health, partnering with clinicians, data scientists, and industry collaborators. His research has resulted in high-impact first-author publications (e.g. JAMA Neurology, JAMA Network Open, Annals of Surgery, JNCCN, CEBP, Cancers, and Nature Scientific Reports), national media coverage, and translational findings that inform healthcare systems and policy discussions.Dr. Dong’s long-term goal is to bridge data science, healthcare, and real-world impact—advancing precision population health by turning complex datasets into actionable, scalable, and equitable solutions.

Transcript:

For decades, we’ve known about America’s “Stroke Belt”—a region in the South where stroke is especially common. But until now, we didn’t know whether epilepsy showed a similar pattern. Our research analyzed health records from nearly five million Medicare beneficiaries across the United States. By combining data with advanced geographic mapping, we created the first nationwide map of new-onset epilepsy in older adults. What we found was striking. Epilepsy was not evenly distributed across the country. Instead, we identified an “Epilepsy Belt” stretching across parts of the South, including Louisiana, Mississippi, eastern Texas, and central Oklahoma, where older adults were much more likely to develop epilepsy. Epilepsy risk later in life is shaped not only by biology, but also by the environments in which people live. Communities with higher epilepsy rates also tended to have more insufficient sleep, more days of extreme heat, lower levels of physical activity, and limited access to health care. That does not mean these factors directly cause epilepsy. Many cases are related to stroke, brain injury, or other neurological diseases. But understanding why certain communities carry a greater burden may help identify where earlier detection, diagnosis, and targeted prevention efforts are needed most. As our population ages and extreme heat becomes more common, understanding how communities shape brain health will become increasingly important. By revealing where epilepsy is most common—and the conditions those communities share—we hope to help public health leaders target resources where they can make the greatest difference.

Read More:

[JAMA Neurology] - Incidence and Risk Factors of Epilepsy Among Older Adults in the US Medicare Population

[Houston Methodist] - Discovering America’s ‘epilepsy belt’: First-of-its-kind national study reveals US regions with high epilepsy rates among older adults

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On Houston Methodist Week: What are free radicals, and how are they affecting our cells?

John P. Cooke, professor of cardiovascular sciences, discusses this.

Faculty Bio:

Dr. John P. Cooke is the Chair of the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences at the Houston Methodist Research Institute, Director of the Center for Cardiovascular Regeneration, and Medical Director of the RNA Therapeutics Program in the Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart and Vascular Center in Houston, Texas.He trained in cardiovascular medicine and obtained a Ph.D. in physiology at the Mayo Clinic. He was recruited to Harvard Medical School as an assistant professor of medicine. In 1990, he was recruited to Stanford University to spearhead the program in vascular biology and medicine, and was appointed professor in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, and associate director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute until his recruitment to Houston Methodist in 2013.Dr. Cooke’s research program is focused on vascular regeneration, vascular cell identity and cell fate. The Cooke group aims to understand the mechanisms underlying epigenetic plasticity that are required for functional adaptation to cellular challenges. Innate immune signaling causes global changes in the expression and activity of epigenetic modifiers with metabolic coupling that favors an open chromatin configuration. The translational output of this work is vascular regeneration via therapeutic transdifferentiation using small molecules or mRNA.

Transcript:

Every day our cells are under attack from an enemy within – reactive oxygen species, also known as free radicals. Free radicals are generated by cell metabolism, by the very nature of burning calories. The DNA in a single cell takes tens of thousands of hits per day.

The good news is that our cells have outstanding DNA repair systems that fix the damage. They have to fix the damage, as the DNA is the code for the identity of the cell, and for its functions. In a surprising twist, we found recently that one such DNA repair protein is the enzyme called telomerase.

You may know it! Telomerase repairs the ends of the chromosome. These ends are a bit like the ends of a shoelace, holding the chromosome together. As cells divide, the telomere gets shorter, and at some point, the cells can’t divide anymore and become aged. Telomerase can repair the ends so that the cells can keep going.

Recently, we found that telomerase can also repair DNA damage throughout the length of the chromosome. We found that telomerase could repair the DNA damage caused by free radicals generated during aging.

Then we gave telomerase a tougher test. Could telomerase repair DNA damage due to radiation. We treated human skin cells, and human skin, with mRNA encoding telomerase. We saw that telomerase was generated by the skin cells and protected them from radiation induced DNA damage. That protection prevented radiation-induced aging and death of the skin cells. This work indicates that the unexpected effect of telomerase to repair DNA throughout the length of the chromosome can protect human cells from free radicals, aging, and radiation.

Read More:

[Houston Methodist] - New study shows mRNA therapy could protect patients from radiation-induced skin damage caused by cancer treatment

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On Houston Methodist Week: Where do you live? Your answer may affect your health.

Jad Ardakani, clinical research fellow, explores why.

Faculty Bio:

Dr. Jad Ardakani is a medical doctor and clinical research fellow in preventive cardiology at the Houston Methodist, where he works under the mentorship of Dr. Sadeer Al-Kindi and Dr. Khurram Nasir. His research focuses on the environmental and social determinants of cardiometabolic disease, leveraging large-scale clinical and geospatial datasets.His work utilizes the Houston Methodist CVD Learning Health System Registry to examine how residential address–linked environmental exposures influence the development of conditions such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. He is particularly interested in integrating environmental exposures with precision prevention approaches—including biomarkers, wearable health data, and body composition measures—to improve cardiovascular risk prediction and population-level prevention strategies. His work also includes studying cardiovascular disease burden and risk factors in Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) populations, with an emphasis on regional disparities and prevention.

Transcript:

The place you call home may shape your health more than you think. When we talk about Type 2 diabetes, we usually focus on diet, exercise, and family history. But where you live — your neighborhood — may matter just as much. Our team set out to test that idea. We used a tool called the Climate Vulnerability Index. It scores how exposed a neighborhood is to stressors like extreme heat, storms, and pollution, along with social conditions such as poverty, poor housing, and limited access to care. We linked that index to the health records of more than one million adults across our health system — none of whom had diabetes when the study began. Then we followed them for up to seven years to see who went on to develop Type 2 diabetes. The results were striking. Adults living in the most vulnerable neighborhoods had a twenty-three percent higher risk of developing diabetes than those in the least vulnerable areas. And this pattern held even after we accounted for age, sex, race and ethnicity, obesity, blood pressure, cholesterol, and baseline blood sugar. In other words, the environment around us leaves a measurable mark on our health — one that traditional risk factors alone can miss. Why does this matter? Because it gives us a new way to see risk. By mapping climate and community vulnerability onto clinical data, we can spot the neighborhoods that need help before disease takes hold, and direct prevention where it will do the most good. This is one of the largest studies of its kind, but it is really just a starting point. Recognizing that health is shaped not only by our choices, but by the places we live, is the first step toward building healthier, more equitable communities.

Read More:

[National Library of Medicine] - Climate Vulnerability Index and Incident Type 2 Diabetes in a Large Integrated Health Care System

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Is film photography dead? Not so fast.

Rotem Rozental, lecturer in critical studies at the Roski School of Art and Design at the University of Southern California, explores the unlikely rebirth of this photographic medium.

Faculty Bio:

Dr. Rotem Rozental is Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Los Angeles Center of Photography and lecturer in Critical Studies at USC Roski School of Art and Design. She holds a Ph.D. in Art History from Binghamton University, where her dissertation examined photographic archives and nationalism.Her monograph “Pre-State Photographic Archives and the Zionist Movement” (Routledge, 2023) won the Jordan Schnitzer First Book Award from the Association for Jewish Studies. Her scholarly work appears in peer-reviewed journals including Photographies and Philosophy of Photography, while her cultural criticism has been published in Artforum, Afterimage, Jewish Currents, and other outlets.Dr. Rozental’s current research examines visual literacy in the age of AI, generational relationships with technology, and institutional leadership during cultural transformation. She has curated 50+ exhibitions exploring photography’s intersection with memory, technology, and collective identity, and has mentored over 60 international artists. Her work bridges academic research with public-facing cultural criticism, making complex ideas about images, technology, and visual culture accessible to general audiences.Follow her writing and connect on Substack:

Transcript:

It wasn’t too long ago that analog photography was declared all but dead.Digital cameras had taken over nearly all areas of photographic production. Film industry titans like Polaroid and Kodak had shrunk dramatically. Darkrooms, shuttered at high schools and college campuses across the country, replaced by digital labs. For most people, the spirit of analog photography was mainly channeled through Instagram filters.But within the past five years, younger people have been increasingly drawn back to the darkroom. Gen Z is going back to the darkroom and is resurrecting analog photography.In 2025, 35% of the 42 million active film camera users worldwide were reported to be between the ages of 18 and 30. The photography journal PetaPixel announced 2024 as “film’s best year in decades,” as major brands have introduced new cameras in response to renewed demand and revived classic models. In my work as a historian of photography and lecturer at the University of Southern California, I’ll often ask my students about how they take photos. This year, for the first time, they discussed printing photos, mounting them or crafting photo albums. They now write letters, send postcards. The inaugural festival AnalogCon that we organized this year at the Los Angeles Center of Photogrhaphy, showed how analog photography – as a practice, ritual and community – is flourishing.This move goes beyond nostalgia—it’s hard to yearn for an analog world you never knew. If anything, it’s postalgic, a deliberate and conscious insistence on a relationship with past technology and media that rejects algorithmic feeds and the alienation of social media. They might find them online, but they practice them IRL, opting for tangible cultural objects and perhaps a healthier relationships with peers and visual culture.

Read More:

[The Conversation] - Why Gen Z is falling in love with film photography

[Los Angeles Center of Photography] - AnalogCon

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